The Obama Effect

Now when millions of school children look at President Obama, they see a role model who looks like them. Does it make a difference? I think it does.

In fact, there is a study out (already!) that says it does. It is called The Obama Effect and was described in an article by Sam Dillon in the New York Times on January 23, 2009.

The study is authored by three professors and has already drawn comments by Dr. Ronald F. Ferguson, a Harvard professor who studies the factors that have affected the achievement gap between white and nonwhite students. 

Initially, when 472 Americans took the test last summer, there was an achievement gap between whites and nonwhites. But on the tests administered immediately after President Obama's acceptance speech and just after his election victory, black performance improved, making the white-black gap "statistically nonsignificant."
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